Revalations
by INK
Summary: Monlogues from our favourite boys on pretty well everything they have to say. Mostly about those closest to them. Bit o' shounen ai.
1. 01 Lessons

A weird little rant sort of this I wrote on a whim in one day. A lot of fun, really, though I think there's still typos. No matter! Still good.

Heero, Duo, Relena, Odin, and Dr. J are not mine.

Pilot 01

I've known a lot of people. They come and go from my life as easily as regularly as the passing seasons each year, there and gone, sometimes there again, but usually gone forever. Some were friends, some enemies. Most of them are dead now, by my hand or by the hand of someone just like me. I try not to let that bother me--it was a war, I did what I had to do. Even if it meant damning myself to years of torture. It didn't used to bother me. But that changed.

Out of all the people I've met, there have been maybe four who were a real influence on my life. Not just an in-and-out person, but someone who put a mark on me, changed who I was (for better or worse), and made sure I would never forget them.

Odin was the first one. Odin Lowe, he was the first person I ever remember caring about me, even in the most detached way. He was as close to a father as anything I had or will ever have. He taught me what I needed to know to be a soldier--how to shoot, how to track, how to move without being noticed. He taught me a lot of things.

He died when I was seven.

I saw it happen.

It was then that he taught me his most valuable lesson: Follow your emotions. Follow your heart. At the time, there was too much going on for me to give it much thought. I had places to go, people to kill. Odin's last lesson was forgotten in the crush of hardship and poverty that became my life for the next few months. 

I should have remembered it. There are several incidents, years after that, which would have been avoided had I listened to my mentor's words. But there was someone else, a new authority that appeared in my life. And what he gave me erased all knowledge of such a lesson.

Dr. J didn't teach me. Everything I learned at his hands I already knew. No, he trained me. He refined me. He took the promising body I had been cursed with and tempered it, built it, burned a new set of instincts into its brain. He put a mobile suit's controls in my hand and violence in my head. He made me the Perfect Soldier.

And he made me forget that I had a heart.

I should hate him for that, I guess. I could hate him for everything he did, whether it included me or not. He and that madcap group of scientists. They controlled my life completely, toyed with me, used me as needed and discarded me just as easily. As they did with all of us, all the Gundam pilots. I wasn't human, then. By their doing, I was a machine. And at the time, I didn't care. J's training had instilled a warped sense of duty in me, and, in my obsession to follow orders, I forgot to hate. I didn't hate. I didn't have enough human in me to hate. 

But I didn't do much else, either.

I fought. I killed. I never repented. I just reported back, and got a new mission. And I fought and killed again.

Years passed. The body I was in grew and transformed, even if I didn't. I remained what that grizzled old scientist had made me.

When I was fourteen, that changed. I was given two alternative orders. Either I could kill the Vice Foreign Minister Darlain, or I could thwart the assassination attempt. I had every intention of killing Darlian. I came very, very close, too. But Odin's words came back to me. And, in the last second, I didn't.

Actually, that wasn't the real change for me. After that, I went back to what I had been. I forgot the tiny flash of emotion that had changed my mind in the decisive moment. I had new orders, I new mission. I couldn't afford to dwell on such insignificant things as a bit of indecision. I had more important things to worry about.

No, the real change came many moths later, when I was sent to Earth as part of the first attempt at Operation Meteor. I saw a girl. Or rather, a girl saw me. More importantly, she saw my Gundam, and she'd seen me with it. That meant only one thing--she had to die.

The girl's name was Relena Darlain. As it turned out, she was the daughter of the man I had nearly killed. 

I didn't kill her either.

I don't know why, to this day. At the time, I was still as much machine as human, and should have just blown her up without thought. But I just ran. When I saw her again, I promised her that I would kill her. But again, I didn't. I had her at gunpoint, but I didn't kill her. 

I saved her life. Later that same day, I shielded her tiny body with the bulk that was my damaged Gundam. She asked me why. It was the same question I asked myself.

I didn't see her again for a long time. When I met up with her next, it was months later, and so much had changed about her that I wouldn't have known it was her but for her own gentle recognition of me.

She wasn't Relena Darlain anymore. Now she was Relena Peacecraft, Princess. And within another few months, she was Queen.

Relena had a crush on me then, I know this. I don't know why--why would anyone like someone who had promised to kill them? But she did. A lot of people think I hated her. Justified, I guess, after so many death threats. No one knew, though, how that promise had come from a soldier's mouth, unthinking of anything but the mission before him. More than once, I found myself regretting that promise.

Relena understood, I think.

I never hated her. She irked me, sometimes, but I never hated her. To tell the truth, I had great respect for her. At fifteen years old, she found herself responsible for a nation torn by war. And I have never seen someone handle such an impossible task so gracefully. She may have been naïve at times, infuriatingly so, even, with her unattainable dreams of complete peace. But the girl was fifteen! A child, as much as I was, and as bound to her duty. It was her job to carry her late father's legacy. And considering she had never met the man, she did a damn good job.

It didn't work out, of course. Something like that never could. But she handled it with such dignity that it blew my mind. And she took up her adoptive father's title maybe a year later. Now she was Vice Foreign Minister Relena Darlain, age sixteen.

She was a threat to everything I was. She was peace to my war, publicity to my secrecy. Sun to Moon, Yin to Yang, love to hate.

And I couldn't ignore her if I wanted to.

It was Relena, in the beginning, who reminded me that I was human. That I had emotions, a soul, a heart. She cared for me like no one else had ever bothered to. She forced me to feel.

Relena taught me how to love.

Yes, loved her. I still love her. She's an easy person to love. I've never met anyone whose heart is in such the right place. And I know she loves me.

It didn't quite work out the way she wanted it to, I don't think. I didn't end up in love with her. And for all that she had done for me, I can't give her credit for the biggest change that took place. You can love and still be miserable. Even with all she taught me, I was still a dead man.

But she taught me to love. And through her, I found the one person who could save my soul. 

It's fitting, I think, that Duo was wearing a priest's collar the first time I met him. Fitting and ironic, as while the symbolism spoke of a person in a position to redeem the souls of others, it clothed a boy who had as little faith in God as I did. More irony in that before I could even begin to process the image of him, he had managed to put two bullets in my body.

Come to think of it, I almost _did_ kill Relena, just that once. But Duo shot me instead. He saved her from me.

He's smarter than he lets on, sometimes.

He was beautiful. He still _is _ beautiful. Even if I refused to acknowledge that at first, even if I spent the first few months that I knew him just wishing he would shut his fool mouth and leave me alone. There is a fire in him, beneath the silly exterior, and even beneath the insightful and calm mantle. Most people have to look very, very hard to find it.

He just out-and-out showed it to me.

When I say that Duo doesn't have faith in God, I don't mean in the least that he doesn't have faith. He doesn't believe in a supreme being, or even the God of Death he so skilfully portrays. But he has faith in other things. He believes in other things.

If you haven't met Duo, there isn't much I can say to describe to you the effect he has on people. He just fills the room with his presence. The moment he walks in the door, everyone knows. He does, of course, announce his entrance, usually in a loud and fairly vulgar manner. But beyond that, there is an aura around him, one that burns away pain in anyone it touches. 

Somehow, he always manages to touch everyone.

Duo believes in life. He believes in anything alive.

It's weird, he _is_ beautiful, I won't try to deny that. But it isn't his body that makes him beautiful. It's everything else about him. He just has this way of making everything new and wondrous. It's at truly heady feeling until you're used to it, I assure you. Sometimes even now it makes me dizzy.

He's a collection of irony, Duo is. I've always heard that a healthy body meant a healthy mind, a healthy soul. That being fit and well would ensure a pleasant disposition. But I'm as healthy as they come, I eat vegetables by the ton and work out on a regular basis--and look at me. I still think about killing myself when I'm away from him for too long.

And then there's Duo. I don't think anyone I know bears as many scars as he does--physical and mental. He's short--an inch or two shorter than me, and I'm short by heritage--because of malnutrition as a child. He has a boy's body, for all that he must be a man after all these years. His voice, gods, his voice is so rough, from smoking, he told me, he used to smoke before the war. And there's a real jaded tone to it, like if you didn't know him better you'd think nothing meant anything to him anymore--that he'd seen so much, too much of everything to care about anything anymore.

His skin is webbed with little white lines. Souvenirs from a life of pain. I don't know what colour his wrists were originally. They're mostly pink now. He cut them, even after I knew him. I saw him do it, once. It made me sick. 

I made him promise never to do it again. As far as I can tell, he hasn't. 

His body and my soul go together. My body and his soul go together. He deserves a body that isn't so decrepit.

Gods, he's beautiful…

It doesn't make sense, how could he go through such a life and come out with a smile on his face? It boggles my mind. How can he walk around with that easy grin when I can barely find the will to lift the corner of my lips?

It's a testament to his strength that he can, I guess. Most people would tell me he puts on that joker mask to hide that he's hurting inside, but I know there's only partial truth behind that. I know he hurts sometimes. It's those times when he lets me hold him and give _him _strength for once. 

But there's just such a lust for life in him, a lust for beauty, for happiness and nature--a little bit of pain could never douse that fire.

I fell in love with him. It was inevitable. He represented a lot to me: Saviour, teacher, friend, confidant, partner, brother… I didn't mean for it to happen. Just one day I saw him walking around outside, "absorbing sun," he called it--and I knew there was no going back.

Odin taught me how to feel. J taught me how to fight.

Relena taught me how to love.

But Duo taught me how to live.


	2. 02 Lullabies

This chapter took longer than I thought it would. The point of view of it kind of shifted between monologue and rant and narrative—hence you can tell when I stopped writing and where I started up again the next day ^.^ But generally I like it! And I hope you do, too.

Duo and Heero are not mine. Unfortunatly.

Pilot 02 Lullabies 

__

"Things go right

Things go wrong

Hearts can break

But not for long

You will grow up big and strong

Sleepy little baby…"

The song is part of my past, part of a segment of my memories that is so buried I sometimes can't distinguish it from my dreams. It's too good to be true, really, that's why I find myself not believing it--that happy, loved little kid in the church, surrounded by peace and warmth can't be me. Not Duo, the thief, the soldier, the smiling Shinigami. He couldn't possibly have come from _that._

Well, the dream becomes a nightmare before too long, so there's your justification. I doubt you've ever watched the only people who ever loved you die right before your eyes. I have, and I don't recommend it.

Back to the song, before I really start complaining. It's a lullaby Sister Helen used to sing to us kids--well, mostly me, since I never did figure out how to fall asleep easily. Now, I still take hours. Sister had such an astonishing repertoire of lullabies, most of which I still remember, amazingly enough. Her voice always sounded like what I thought an angel's would. Though no angle will ever sing for me.

__

"Lullaby, lullaby

Baby won't you close your eyes

You'll be sleeping by and by

Sleepy little ba--"

Not all memories are happy.

Oh, hell, my voice caught again. And now Heero will wake up and I'll have a gun at my head before I can take another breath. OK, keep singing, Maxwell. Don't move, and he'll keep sleeping. Don't worry that your voice is rough with emotion suddenly, and a little off key. Just keep singing. 

And don't remember.

Hey, he didn't wake up. Just shifted a little. Maybe if I slow down and sing real quiet, he won't notice if I stop completely. Then I can get back to my book, or try to actually get some sleep. Oh, who am I trying to kid? I'll never be able to concentrate on the book in a mood like this, let alone sleep.

Damn Heero. Damn him for being able to just fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Maybe he wakes up at the drop of a hat, too, and be totally alert instantly, but he doesn't have to lie awake staring at the ceiling for hours on end. It's impossible _not_ to have memories when I get that bored. Hell, that's why I'm always talking--quiet equals boredom, and boredom equals memories.

Why are the good memories so hard to hold onto? Why can't I burn _them_ into my head as easily as I do the explosions and screaming?

It's a damn unfair world.

Just keep singing, Duo.

The song's done. I need another one. And, of course, one pops right up, I must have fifty back there in my head. _Coolies and sloughs, lullaby lullaby, coolies and sloughs_. Hey, that's not one of Sister Helen's! Where is it from? I always ask myself this, and I haven't gotten any closer to an answer. It's a mystery.

Prairie lullaby. I don't know why I know its name, either. But prairies are in the States, on Earth, so I guess we share a birthplace, this old song and I. After all, I don't know where I came from either.

I feel like that sometimes. Like a plant without roots. Blowing--I haven't had a real home in years and years. Or people to call a family. No roots. Hehe, a tumbling tumbleweed across the prairie… "_Lullaby lullaby, coolies and sloughs._"

Why am I singing, anyway? Why did I start singing to this goon who's asleep beside me? Just impulse, I guess. One night he couldn't sleep, and I just started singing, songs from a part of me I'd nearly forgotten. I thought he was asleep, so I quit and started to get ready for bed myself, but then he opened his eyes and said, "Don't stop. I liked it."

Go figure.

He has such a "raise me" aura sometimes. I mean, his childhood was worse than mine in some ways. Now mine sucked, like, off the Richter scale of suckage. But I swear, Heero didn't even _have_ a childhood. To be a soldier from day one--that musta been awful. Suckage in colour and stereo surround sound. Perfect Soldier or no Perfect Soldier, he reminds me so much of a little kid sometimes it scares me. The way he pouts when he doesn't get what he wants right away--he calls it a brood, but I know it's a pout. And the way he never seems to run out of energy. The way he's so stubborn and won't tell you what's wrong until you beat it out of him. He's so cute sometimes!

Eh, he's moving again. Probably because I'm thinking too hard and I stopped singing. Tough, I enjoy thinking about Heero, and it's hella easier than thinking about my life. He's the closest thing I've had to a family since the church blew up. Some family, I guess, but it's good enough for me. Sad, sometimes, enough to nearly make me cry, the stuff that takes us sometimes, but I wouldn't give it up for all the money in the world. History is a bitch. What's that old saying? Those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it? Yeah, in summer school. 

But we're all just human, you know? And honestly this whole stupid thing called war is just the same fight, the same argument, the same problem over and over and over. The same kinds of people disagreeing on the same sort of problem. And then BANG, things are exploding and people are dying. We're human, and our nature is not to ever learn from our mistakes. Our brains are no longer evolving. We remain as we were several thousand years ago. 

Boy, it must be after dark, listen to me. I sound like a freaking _philosophe_. Hey, wasn't the French Revolution their fault? We can't win. Smart people come up with good ideas, then stupid people get a hold of them and screw them up and take over stuff. The apostles did it with the teachings of Jesus--who do you think wrote the Bible? Not Jesus. Nope, all his sidekicks, then all the other crusaders and bishops and popes and TV evangelists got a hold of that and chopped up more people. Over and over and over.

I bet I haven't even learned _my_ lesson. I'll keep on fighting until the day I die, if only because it's just part of who I am. Beyond the whole standing up for what you believe in shit--you can stand up for what you believe in without blowing things up! Well, sometimes then you just get blown up yourself. But I've been like this, fighting, like this, for a long time. Long enough that if I let it go it will be just one less root to hold me in place. I think Heero feels that way as well, if _feel_ is really the word to use--this is Heero after all. Ok, that's not fair--but I'll think about that later. Just he's been a soldier forever, like I said. He'd go crazy… crazier? He'd lose it if he didn't even have a good fight to keep him going. That guy's real empty. Or real full, too, at the same time. Really full of a lot of shitty experiences and memories that he just locks away, puts aside, forgets about. So they're separate from him, or at least the him that he is conscious of. Empty, not really, because what he's left with after filling up his head with forgotten trash is small, and easy to fill.

That took me a long time to figure out. And it took me a long time to figure out that I really couldn't help him. That I needed a good shrink almost as bad as he did--which of course, will have to wait, as we're in the middle of a freaking war. I worked really hard for months trying to get him out of his shell, exhausted myself even. It worked a little. I got him to listen. He heard me. But there's so much I can't do.

So much of him is beyond what I can reach. So much I can't do for him.

I feel like I'm cheating him sometimes. I know--I _know_, without a shadow of doubt, that he loves me. Because I care about him, and I look after him, and I hold his hair back when he's sick and don't talk about it after, and I represent everything that he's not, and everything that he wants to be--short of the killer, I guess… There's just--so much _more _to me, more _of_ me that there is of him. More to love and more to hate, really. And Heero loves directly. One person at a time, like sunlight concentrated to a pinprick through a magnifying glass. He doesn't love very many people, so who he does love gets a lot of it. And being it _his _love, it's intense. It burns. Sometimes it hurts more than anything…

I'll love anything that'll give me reason to. And Heero did, a lot. I do love him, more that anyone. But--I'll never be able to give him as much as he gives me. I have to give some to the others, the other pilots, my brothers. Some to Father Maxwell and Sister Helen, who can never return it again--that's a black hole if there ever was one. Some to everyone. I can't give it all to him like he can to me. It feels to unbalanced.

So unfair.

Nothing is as it should be, in this world. A world where adults do foolish, silly things, and the children do the fighting and the invading an the ruling. We live in dark, screwed up times. Especially us, right in the middle of it. You'd think in the eye of the hurricane it would be calm. Well, it ain't.

We escape from it any way we can. The options are slim. Die. Lose yourself--and the memories--in drugs. Or find someone to comfort you. Who knows what pain you feel and sympathizes. Empathizes. 

And that's what I did. I found someone, namely Heero, who felt, to a certain extent, what I was feeling, who I could confide in and find comfort in, and offer comfort in return. He did most of the comforting at first, in his own way. Mostly just because it took him a while to admit that he even needed comforting, and longer still to accept it, even from me. There is more of a balance, now. We hold each other up, give each other strength, in different ways. But the energy expended is pretty equal to that taken. 

Balance is the way everything should be. And for that, I guess we human need a bit of violence to make us recognize and appreciate the peace. But as far as that goes, I have no balance. My life is like this: ninety percent war, six percent apprehensive waiting for war--and four percent Heero.

Like I said, times are weird. Children are killing, ruling, and doing things that only adults should have to be responsible for. And we're only sixteen and seventeen, us pilots. We're young. But we're men, not boys. We've all done too much, seen too much, to be boys anymore. Children don't fight wars. Children don't kill. 

And children don't love. Not like I love Heero. Not like he loves me.

We're too young, far too young, to do what we do. To be so close. To know so much about each other, every nook and cranny in the other's brain, every ridge and curve of the other's body. Adults connect like that, not children. But we have, and we do, over and over. 

It's all we have. All _I_ have, anyway. In Heero's arms, it's the only time I can really, really forget about this damn war and my part in it. It's really weird, too. It makes me so sad. I love him, and I love his body, and he can make me burn with passion and even ecstasy--but afterwards. Afterwards, it's different. When I lie in his arms and he in mine, and I think about what awaits me when the sun comes up. Or the life I could have had, that Heero could have had. And I want to never move from where I am. I want to stay in the bed and forget about the war and the fact that I'm much to young to be so intimate with anyone. Just lie beside him and be in love with him forever. John Lennon once said that if everyone in the world just went to bed for three days, we would have world peace. Why can't we do that?

There are moments, with Heero, where nothing matters but him. His mouth, his eyes, his body and soul fused with mine. Moments where the world burns away in white fire, and there is no pain, no agony. Only ecstatic, crazy happiness, heat and love. In those moments, there is no room in my heart for sadness or pain. Only room for Heero.

But those moments are fleeting. Occasional. And they become addictive, until I crave them like a drug, that escape. When they come, I want them to last forever. But they don't. They just fade, slowly, slowly, and leave behind them a terrible empty sadness, in the knowledge that they are something that I can never have.

It hurts. It makes me cry, sometimes, and sometimes I can hold the tears back long enough for Heero to fall asleep, sometimes I can't. When I can't, then he holds me, but that almost makes it hurt worse. So I let him fall asleep, and I try not to wake him. And I lie there beside him, and think about other things, waiting for sleep to come, waiting for the velvet darkness to envelope me as well. It takes hours. So to keep Heero sleeping, and to keep me from thinking too much, I sing Sister Helen's lullabies.

That's how I got here. Sitting up naked under the thin sheets, watching Heero sleep, singing softly to him. I feel empty again. But no, don't think about that. Just keep singing.

"_Sleep my child, and peace attend thee_

All through the night

Guardian angels God will lend thee

All through the night

Soft the drowsy hours are creeping

Hill and vale in slumber keeping

All through the night."

Sometimes I don't know if I'm singing to Heero or myself.

I'm going to cry. I know it. I've thought too hard, too much. I held it off until he fell asleep, but I can't anymore. Yep, there I go. Damn it all, I can't even do it silently. He'll wake up now. Wake up and panic. Don't cry, _don't cry._ Just keep singing.

I can't. And my voice trying to sing and cry at the same time wakes him up. SNAP, his eyes are open, panicked, he doesn't know where he is. It'll take him a second to realize that he isn't being attacked, but before that happens I'll--

Have a gun to my head.

No… God… No more. Not tonight. I can't bare to be under that penetrating blue gaze tonight. There's no point in trying to push him off, he's stronger than me and it will only make him take longer to figure the situation out. Just screw my eyes shut and wait for him to come to his senses, and hope that he does before his hand finds my neck.

I hear him swear, the metal is gone from my temple, the gun clicks as he puts the safety back on and again as he places it on the table beside him. Now I can hear him shifting closer to me, his voice whispering apologies in my ear, pleading, sorrowful, but it only makes me cry harder. His fingers thread in my unbound hair, stroking out the tangles he put there not so long ago. Ok, that helps. Breathe. Breathe. Don't think.

"Are you all right, Duo?"

Breathe in. Hold it. One… two… three… four… five… "I--I'm ok."

He doesn't believe me. No, he's wrapping his arms around me and pulling me onto his chest. At least he isn't talking, that would just break me. If he just holds me I should be all right.

His eyes are so blue in the dark. Like twin lasers right into my skull. But tonight… They almost--heal. Like they are burning away pain. Eh? This is new. They hold me as securely as his arms do, not letting me look away until they can do no more. So blue. Isn't blue the colour of serenity? Of calm, cool water and cleansing? Who'd have thought the Perfect Soldier would have such beautiful eyes… 

His lips move, is he saying something? I can't tell, but that's not important, because I have to kiss those lips, right now, or I'll lose it. He jumps, not expecting it, but kisses me back, so soft. Should I cry? But for sadness or happiness? I feel them both so sharply right now. Hot and cold, happiness and sadness, pleasure and pain. His arms tighten around me, holding me snug against him. His fingers slide on my skin. That moment, I need that moment. I don't care if I had it once already tonight! It's an addiction. I need a fix. A fix of Heero, and the painkiller he is. Like heroin. Like morphine. 

I need to forget. I need to not think. And only he can make me stop thinking.

__

Mais ce soir tu t'endors

Comme un ange dans mes bras.

The last two lines translate roughly to "But tonight, you sleep/ Like an angel in my arms." I think. My French is a wee bit rusty, so if anyone has a better translation, let me know.

And for the love of God, review! I need confidence before I can write 03!


	3. 03 Music

You'll get your mirror fic someday, Kiri, I promise, but until then you'll have to put up with this. Trowa just grabbed me around the neck and started ranting in my ear, and there was nothing I could do to stop him. But this one is, in my opinion, the best revelation yet, woo! So happy yuletide, love, and enjoy.

Happy Christmas to the rest of you, too!

When reading this, you will find references to a very beautiful piece of music. This song is called "Jeux d'Eau" by the Cirque du Soleil, and if you have Win MX or Morpheus or some such, I recommend you go look it up and play it while reading, because it is what the story was written to. Plus, it's a very beautiful piece of music, and wants listening to.

****

Pilot 03 Music

Duo told us this joke, once, that life is like a bathtub. In order to get the most out of it, you have to get right in, not just skim the surface--and the longer you stay in, the more wrinkles you get. I forget why that happens, the wrinkle thing. Something about diffusion or osmosis or one of those passive transport things I would know more about if I'd actually finished school. Weird, though, because if you put raisins in water they get all fat and juicy, but humans wrinkle right up, like they _lose _water.

One of life's great mysteries, without doubt.

Sixteen years isn't very long to stay in life. Not very long at all, considering that the life expectancy these days is around eighty five. So you'd think that for being sixteen years old I'd have seen about enough to make your average military general… blink. If I were a war-movie kind of guy, maybe enough to make him nod appreciatively, once, before brushing me off and going back to whatever it was he was doing before this scrawny teenager came in and starting talking at him.

Well, if you thought that, you're so wrong it would almost make me laugh, if I thought I could. See, last time I was in a military general's presence, it was at a party at the end of the war, and he was asking me all sorts of questions about guerrilla mobile suit tactics, and how all five of the Gundam pilots had managed to stay alive for nearly two years straight of war that we were front and centre in. (You know, when you're only sixteen, two years is a long time. A really long time. Like a whole eighth of a life. An eighth of an eighty year old's life is ten years. Think on that for a second, if you can handle it.) I wasn't really paying attention to the guy, respectable and medal-laden though he may have been. I wasn't really paying attention to anything at the party, just standing there and wondering when it would be finished. Or at the very least, when the general would lay off, go talk to someone who cared about war, like Heero, and leave me alone.

Because honestly, I don't need to relive two years of violence every day. Only just now have I been able to actually relax when I'm at "home" (I haven't really gotten to thinking of it as home, yet) with Quatre. Really, really relax, not worry about the next mission or why the heck I haven't gotten the next mission… Relaxing is never something I've been good at. Because when you relax you let your guard down. You're vulnerable. And vulnerability has never served me well.

I learned pretty quick to put up shields. To not let other people know what I was thinking or feeling. As soon as people know what you feel, they can manipulate you, and hurt you. I learned that pretty quick, too, the first time I forgot the first lesson and cried in the presence of one of the mercenaries I was working with.

He tried to shut me up. Said I was distracting him. My ass, I was distracting him. Anyway, what he did to me only made me cry harder, so he was left with this screaming, bawling little kid and even more work to do, as his methods were somewhat… time consuming. He ended up leaving in disgust, taking nearly all traces of himself with him. 

Not all traces. Enough that no one but me knew he'd been there, and what he'd been up to. But he left enough for me to feel lower that a snake in a gutter for a week and a half. More than enough.

If the other soldiers got any indication of what the guy had done, they kept it to themselves, which may have been a good or bad idea, I haven't decided yet. Unfortunately, what they kept quiet about, they also found interest in, and it wasn't long before the guy's methods became something of a fad around the camp. Lightened their lives up considerably, no doubt. I just had the bad luck of being around when the idea struck them.

So I learned not to be vulnerable, though little help that was now that the fashion of the camp had been set. If I thought it would keep me from getting hurt I was dead wrong. It hurt all right. The only comfort it offered was that I knew they wouldn't have the pleasure of seeing me cry.

He'd laughed at me, that bastard who had done it first. Called me a baby, said that I was loud and a pain in the ass. He walked out of the hangar as good as laughing. And I swore, there on the cold cement floor as I hiccupped and coughed and finally ran out of tears, that I would never cry again.

Something happened that day, though I don't know what. It truly was the last time I cried. Never once after that, with all the violence and blood and pain I endured, did I ever allow a tear to fall from my eyes. I was sick of it. Sick to death of it, sick of the salty tightness it left on my cheeks, sick of the headache that inevitably followed, sick of the shame of it, sick of the deflation and utter submission to the whole world that crying implied. So I stopped. It was hard, at first, and had me biting nearly through my lip to keep the tears at bay. But it got easier, until even the prickling in the corners of my eyes I had learned to squash simply stopped happening. 

And so did I cease to feel. It took years, but by God, by the time that war rolled around there was nothing the world could throw at me that could break that wall. Maybe I was better off for it--I tend to think I'd be dead if I hadn't had it. So there's some merit to it, at least. Quatre would tell me otherwise, but he's a guy who cries in movies. I could never do that.

But now that the war's done… I don't know, sometimes it feels like that wall isn't necessary anymore, like it's just some big ugly protrusion in my head, a leftover, covered in graffiti and half falling apart anyway. I mean really, the war's done, you'd think I'd be happy, huh? You'd think I'd do more than just look around and shrug when Quatre asks me if I'm OK. I wanted to, I think. I wanted to get up and run around and smile, and hell, even _laugh_. Duo was laughing like a maniac when he figured out that everyone was alive. I wanted that feeling. That energy. I wanted to know what it felt like. I'd never had any reason to be happy.

But the wall that kept pain from really making itself known to me was a damn effective wall, and the only thing I could really distinguish as emotion was a deep sense of relief. Thank God that I didn't have to deal with war again--not for a little while, anyway. Sixteen years of turmoil. It seemed like a lifetime… and it _was, _to a sixteen year old. My whole life. And with the war done and best forgotten about, I felt like I suppose someone would feel at the end of a long day. Tired. Ready to just give up. Glad it's over. But this wasn't just a long day. It was a life, a very short life, that seemed to me quite long enough. I had no interest in hanging around to see what else the universe cold throw at me. I would have been perfectly happy going to bed one night and never waking up again.

But I guess for suicide you need a bit of passion in you, and the part of my brain marked "passion" was a black hole. Besides, Quatre would have had a fit, and I didn't like the idea of making him sad. So I stayed on, kept getting up every day, going about my business and never laughing, never crying.

Nothing used to bother me. Not even the fact that nothing _did_ bother me. I just didn't care. But that's changing, slowly. It's like… like a phantom limb, I guess, though I've never had one. But it feels like I guess one would feel. Something aching that isn't even there. There are times when I watch Quatre cry, and know why he's crying, and know that I'm supposed to feel _something_… And feel nothing. Just this kind of hollowness, like there's something missing in me. And it's more the idea of it that bothers me, I think. Or it was. Now it's more the feeling.

It's said that if you can question your own sanity it means you're sane. Would that work with this, I wonder? If I can feel that I'm not feeling anything, does that make me sane? Does that make me human? 

Actually, some things do affect me. 

Never things that are actually happening around me, of course. But I've noticed more and more that if I'm reading a particularly emotional book, I'll feel for the character in ways I never feel for myself. And there was a painting I saw once, at one of Relena's peace-party things, done by a girl even younger than me. It was of an angel, cradling the broken body of a dead soldier. And it made my breath catch.

And the music, dear God, the music. There was this classical piece I heard once, snooping through one of Quat's sister's collections. It was all piano and cello and keening Chinese violin, and I almost swore I felt that so-unfamiliar prickling in the corners of my eyes at its climax. It spoke of things I could only dream of, water and deep midnight blue and emerald green and light silver. Of dew and leaves and cool, fathomless pools in the middle of a dark forest by moonlight. I couldn't explain the images that popped, unbidden into my head when I listened to it over and over, not wanting to lose that weird tugging in my chest that was so strange, and at the same time so compelling.

When Quatre asked me what kind of things I'd listened to in that big old music room of theirs, I could only answer one way. Beautiful things.

And I'd really only listened to the one song. 

Music is what really does it to me. I think now that I'd not give up my sense of hearing for all the money and fame in the world, not that I'd care for money and fame anyway--the cliché stands. 

It's why I learned to play the flute, probably, even if I didn't know it at the time. It let me forget, it soothed over the emptiness and let me focus on something else. Like some people can stare at a candle flame for hours, I could play that flute until the sun came up, just for the sheer freedom it gave me.

Quatre thinks like that too, about his music. During the war, when we lodged at one of his family's places, I'd often catch him playing the piano or his violin when everyone else was long ago asleep. And when I asked him why, he'd say, just because. Because it doesn't hurt. And when he played, this look of peace would come over him. Especially the violin. I swear, he petted that little instrument when he played it, and the purring melodies he coaxed out of it were almost as good as the water song at his sister's. And he looked absolutely rapturous when he played. Like the only thing in his world that mattered to him was what he was holding. Like it made him happy like nothing else could ever accomplish. Like having it taken away from him would break his heart.

Maybe it's beauty that breaks me, then. That angel painting was beautiful. The water song was beautiful.

And Quatre is beautiful, too.

It was him that broke me the most. Last night I was sick, and feeling only marginally higher than I had felt that first night so many years ago in that hangar. And I felt old. Much older that a sixteen year old should feel. Quatre, in his empathy and deep-rooted wisdom, ran me a hot bath, dumped in half a bottle of relaxing aromatherapy bath oil, and he stuck me in it, closed the door behind him, and left me to contemplate.

The bath, of course, did little except make my fingertips shrivel, which in turn made me feel even older. It seemed I had lived two lifetimes, three, for all that I had not even lived half of one. And so did my thought process progress, getting more and more morbid, until I seriously considered letting my head fall beneath the water's fragrant surface, and fill my lungs with the stuff. Surely, I thought, I deserved a rest.

I guess Quat got worried about me, and, with his uncanny timing, he opened the door and came in to sit in the floor beside the tub. He didn't say anything, just smiled at me, and toed the door closed to keep the warm, cradling steam from leaking into the rest of the house.

We would have cut an interesting picture, the two of us, had anyone else been in the bathroom. Quatre leaning against the bathtub and completely not caring that I was both naked and contagious. And myself staring past him at the beading steam on the walls, curled up and reddened by the nearly-scalding water I kept heating up. He didn't say anything to me, until the silence stretched and I began to squirm uncomfortably, very aware of my current state and the fact that Quatre was there to witness it. It was unsettling. Plus, he usually babbles to fill my silences. When we're both quiet, it's like the whole world stops moving.

And he noticed my discomfort, of course. He turned around, and smiled at me, one of his small, affectionate smiles that only just curves his lips bit crinkles the corners of his eyes anyway. I wasn't sure if I should return it or try to hide from it. It scared me. Weird, huh? That a smile should scare me, and I didn't even know why. I mean, this was _Quatre_. There's little to be scared of in that guy, unless he's juiced up on Zero System and about to blow you up--which I've experienced. But I swear to God, that little smile made me want to disappear. 

I guess it was because… I don't know, because I think I wanted it so badly. That smile tugged at my heart the same way that song did, weird, unsettling feeling, but not one I was willing to give up just yet. Have you even noticed that the more you want something, the less likely you are to accept it when there's a possibility of you getting it? I suppose we're trying to save ourselves from disappointment, but that smile made me turn about the consistency of pudding. If I acknowledged it for what I thought it was, what I wanted it to be, then it would disappear. It would betray me, and leave me open and vulnerable.

I never make myself vulnerable. Which is a joke, considering there I was, naked and sick in a bathtub without so much as bubbles to act as a shield. But in what little space I had in that tub, I backed into, until my shoulder hit the wall and there was nowhere else to go. I considered pulling the shower curtain across to hide him from my view, but thought the better of it when his smile went sad, and he reached for me.

He took my hand, tangled his pale fingers with mine and pressed our palms together. His hand was soft and cool next to the hot water mine had been resting in, and when he squeezed, I felt as though coolness was spreading through my whole body, nearly bubbling like spring water. It reminded me of that piano song, that feeling. I couldn't tell if it was a physical sensation or a mental one, but it felt good. Weird, alien, but good. So good I squeezed back involuntarily, unwilling to let him go.

And then I met his eyes. And what I saw there nearly made me faint. He had his violin look on, the look where the only thing that matters is the thing he's holding--and at that moment, he was holding my hand. Quite simply, he was holding _me_, my soul, my whole life. And he was looking at me like I meant the world to him.

Something happened then that hadn't happened in a long time. In years. My eyes got past the prickly-corner stage, and I actually felt tears collection in them. It took me a minute to notice, too, that's how unfamiliar the feeling was. On instinct, I turned my head away, staring at the tiled wall and mentally forcing the tears back. The old shame surged up, sharp and painful as it had been so many years ago. I would not, I would _not_ cry. Not ever again. I'd made that vow, and by God I would keep it. Boy's didn't cry. Crying was weak and babyish and noisy. I would never ever let myself be reduced to crying again. 

And no, never in front of Quatre. Conveniently forgetting his penchant to cry at the drop of a hat, I convinced myself that if he saw a single tear come out of my eyes, it would be the end of our friendship. He would be disgusted with me. He would think I was no better than a child, to just bawl over nothing. He would laugh at me just like the mercenaries had. He would throw me out and never speak to me again. He would think I wasn't good for anything…

Somewhere in the middle of my mental tirade, he let go of my hand. To me, it was a sure sign he was going to leave. But it reappeared on my chin, gently urging me to turn my head, to look at him. I did so almost defiantly, daring him to comment. But when I met his gaze, and saw in his blue eyes not disgust or malice… but understanding, tenderness, and, dare I say it, even _love_. 

Which nearly broke me, and I choked back what might have been a sob. Most of the tears had disappeared while my head was turned, but seeing him look at me like that brought a new wave through me. I didn't know whether I wanted to say something or just die on the spot. I blinked desperately, trying to keep the tide back, but it seemed to me a useless act. 

Quatre bit his bottom lip, and with his fingertip gently touched the corner of my left eye. He caught a tear where it had hung suspended from my lashes, let the wetness collect on the pad of his finger, and painted the saltwater slowly down my cheek, mimicking the path the tear would take if I ever let it fall. He lingered with the moist tip resting against the corner of my mouth, hesitating, waiting for a reaction.

I parted my lips to take a breath, and the salt of my tears, in all its human realness, flooded my tongue. And with no further thought, I let go. 

And I cried.

Oh, I cried. My breath caught over and over again in my throat, forcing its way out in rough sobs, and stumbling back in with short, desperate gasps. Tears flowed freely from my eyes, sometimes following the path he had made, and sometimes spilling down on their own. I forgot to be ashamed, forgot to be disgusted with myself. I just let myself bawl, right there in the bathtub, my face between my palms and Quatre's hands stroking my hair.

And it felt good. So good. Like I was wringing my body out. It was excruciating, sort of painful, but so freeing. I felt like I was bleeding impurities out my eyes, squeezing out everything that hurt. Call me sick, but I almost never wanted it to stop, even going so far as to call up other horrible memories to bring on a new wave of tears, to prolong it. I was purgatory, yes, it hurt, but it was such a release.

Duo showed me something once, that he made me swear to never tell Heero the truth about. Every battle wound he has is slashed across with another straight scar. He cuts over all of them, every one he gets, regardless of how healed they are when he gets around to it. And then he drains out the blood in the area. To get rid of the memory, he told me. To get rid of the pain. To get rid of the violence. It baffled me when he told me. But now I think I understand, even just a little, what it feels like to him.

Eventually, of course, I ran out of memories, and ran out of things to cry about. I found myself leaning over the rim of the tub into Quatre's warm shoulder, the last of my tears soaking through his tee shirt to dampen his skin. He had his arms wrapped around me tightly, rubbing my back, regardless of how wet I was getting him. In my daze I had forgotten to heat up the water again, and it had cooled from scalding to pleasantly warm around me. My head ached, fairly pounded, drained and dehydrated. Left in the stead of my tears was a strange, throbbing hollowness, but I honestly didn't mind it. Because I could _feel_ it. And besides, with Quatre holding me, and the water cradling me, and the fragrant air warming me, that hollowness was doomed.

He slept beside me last night. Neither of us got under the covers, the bathroom had been too hot to even think about it. I curled up against him, gripping a fistful of his shirt as I drifted to sleep. I dreamed of the water song at his sister's. I dreamed of a pool in a moonlit forest, and a boy crouched near its edge. I dreamed that with every note in the music, a drop of water hit the pool's surface. I dreamed that each drop was a tear from the boy's eye, and I dreamed that they were tears of joy and release.

In my dream, that boy was me.

And this morning, we both slept in.

Everyone except Kiri, please click the botton below and leave me a review. It doesn't have to be very long, really! I need them! Feedback! Input! I'm so addicted.

Kiri, you just turn around, grab the phone and call me dammit. There's a few things I forgot to tell you this morning….


	4. 04 Madness

In case you haven't noticed, these rants do take place at various intervals throughout the course of the GW series and after. Hence, no I am not a cruel evildoer who has killed Trowa, this is after the Quatre/Zero System incident.

Enjoy!

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Pilot 04 Madness

So many bodies. I can see them even now, sprawled on the field. Most of them aren't even human bodies. Just lumps of metal, either whole and disabled, or in pieces. Massive things. Like big gargantuan apes, only clumsier. They don't look human, any of those mobile suits. Not in the least.

So why do I keep seeing human bodies lying there instead?

Especially when I know that there's a good chance a lot of those suits' pilots survived. I mean, the things are huge. Huge! You can blow an arm off and never touch the pilot. Most of the suits that lay on the field were intact--a guy can get knocked around in one of those, but to kill someone you have to either hit the cockpit or blow the suit up. I left the suits intact whenever I could.

So why do I keep seeing bodies?

Ah! Sometimes they get up, stand up and walk towards me and all they say is, "Why? Why?" Why did you kill me, Quatre? I'm just fighting for what I believe in, just like you are. I'm just following orders, just like you are. We shouldn't be fighting. We should be friends. You don't have any friends, do you, Quatre? You had one, maybe, but you killed him, didn't you? I could have killed you, Quatre, but you got to me first, you got to all of us. Maybe if I had killed you, we wouldn't all be dead now, just you, just one worthless, sinful, child killer lying cold in the sand. No one's loss, right?

No, no! I cry, hating their words because they're too close to the truth. I killed because I had to! I hated it! I didn't want to. I never wanted to kill. I said I was sorry, didn't I? Didn't I say I wouldn't kill you if you surrendered? Why did you keep coming?! Why did you force me to make good on my promise?!

Don't make this about _me_, damn you! This is your fault! You could have backed down. You pulled the trigger! You blew up my suit! You killed me! You _killed _me! I'm only a little older than you, man. I had my whole life in front of me. I was gonna climb up Oz's ladder and be a general and be famous and make buckets of cash and marry my girlfriend and have a family! You ended that! _You_ took that away from me! Bastard!

And I curl in on myself, trying to turn my back on the words, but I have no shields. They're right, after all. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'd fix it if I could. But I can't. I'm so sorry. 

They circle me like a pack of wolves. They have no faces. They alternate visages between metal MS helmets and bloodied masks. I did this. I blew their bodies to pieces. I made them die in pain and agony. My fault, all my fault. And I can't change it.

If I sit still long enough, they'll leave. They'll come back later, but for now, they leave. They kick me on their way past, spit on me, bloody globs of saliva, call me things I've never called anyone in my life. I sit and shake, and hold my tongue. If I ignore them, they'll go away.

They'll go away. They'll come back later, but for now, they'll go away.

Are they gone? I can't open my eyes. Are they gone?

They're gone.

Oh, thank Allah…

They say you're always the last person to know when you've gone crazy. But no one else knows about this, no one knows about these horrible ghosts that haunt me night after night. Maybe they're dreams, and I'm just having nightmares. Or maybe they're real. They leave no hairs on the carpet, no bloodstains in the upholstery. But they're there. Oh, they're there. I feel their breath on me, hear their words. Because--it's true. Everything they say is true.

They aren't the monsters. I am.

Even with them gone, it's still true. Even if they're just figments of my imagination, it's still true. I can can't change that. And that's why I can't fight them.

But I wasn't all wrong, was I? It wasn't a big mistake to join with the Magunacs, like I thought it was. They taught me to be someone other than the little rich brat my father had raised me to be. They found in me the compassion everyone says I'm famous for… ah, God, I've killed more than any of them, I didn't start killing until I came to them, isn't that some sick irony? I used to think it was a crazy mistake to have joined them, to leave my family behind, that it would ruin me. But it kind of saved me, kind of made me someone I could get along with. 

And at the same time, still, I doubt. If I hadn't joined them, if I had stayed with my father, if I hadn't changed, if I had remained young and naïve and just another rich kid… How many of those pilots would still be alive now?

No. If I think like that I'll go crazy. I have to stay sane. I have to stay healthy, so I can continue to be useful, to fight, to defend the colonies.

And continue to kill.

I used to think there was another way. That there had to be another way to defend, another way to get the point across. I thought surely the UESA would listen to reason from the colonies. There could be peace talks, debates, delegations. I grew up in a political household, after all. I've seen what talking can accomplish. Words have a lot of power. 

But it will never work. Never. And only because we're human and we don't function like that. Rashid told me once, something he had heard as a boy full of dreams of glory, when he first joined the army. A soldier on his own is the height of humanity and honour, willing to put his life on the line for the betterment of his country and the protection of his beliefs. But war, as a whole, is nothing more than mass murder. If you ask any young soldier on his first, starry-eyed mission, if he is willing to die for his cause, he will say yes. But I guarantee he is lying. He has no idea what he has gotten into, no idea what it means to die for what you believe in. He cannot begin to comprehend what he has done, what he will do, the magnitude of his betrayal to God and all men. He sees only the glory, the chance to feel like something powerful, the chance to be worth more. He does not see the blood that will be spilled. He does not see the horrible, consuming guilt that inevitably follows. He does not even imagine his own body blown to trace atoms in half a second, and his descent into the very depths of Hell. He does not see the fire of battle, the fire of the funeral pyres, the fire of damnation, no… the only fire he sees is the fire of his own foolish passion.

None of the soldiers I killed expected to die. The all expected to go and go until the war was over, and then to go back to the same life they had before the madness started. Would that I could give them that. Would that they could all go back. Would that _I_ could go back.

But it doesn't work like that.

I was just the same, before my first battle. I was just as arrogant as every soldier I've ever faced, more so because I, in Sandrock, was well protected. There was no chance I would die--I would fight and win, for the colonies, for peace, for glory, and I would go back to the life I had before. Blood? Fire? Death? No such thing. Lies, all of it.

But I was so wrong.

Maybe old warriors feel this, too. Maybe they don't always feel like they are fighting for the true cause. Maybe they stare at a battlefield and after wash their hands until they're raw, trying to get off the blood. Maybe they see the old ghosts, and wish, so passionately that it hurts, that they could undo every single one of their murders.

Or maybe they just die too, sink farther and farther back into themselves until the cause doesn't matter, the deaths don't matter and even they don't matter, nothing matters… Maybe they go on instinct and fight without thought of their own lives or any other lives they're faced with. Maybe they just give up, and half-heartedly curse any day that they ate not killed as well.

When I was young, before I was a murderer, I swore that such a thing would never happen to me, that I would never lose sight of what I was fighting for and never become such a machine. I would never cease to feel, I would always be compassionate and caring and love even those I killed.

Damn my intuition that I was right! Damn my empathy and humanity that I should be unable to build a wall between myself and my enemy! How I wish for just a moment of ignorance, just a moment of blissful naivety, a moment of hardened numbness… anything, anything but this aching, chewing guilt.

My hands are spotted with blood. My own. Some is dried and turning brown, some is still bright red and fresh, weeping from the scabs and splits that reopen every time I move my fingers. I washed them for hours, until the skin washed away with the feeling of death, and I was left with even more blood collecting in my palms than I had seen before I even turned the tap on. The water that drips off my fingertips now is streaked with it, the evidence of my humanity running in diluted rivulets down the drain. The water is so cold I don't even feel it anymore. My hands are numb and tingling. 

The reflection in the mirror doesn't betray any hint of what I really am. My hair is blonde and gleaming, like something straight out of a fairy tale. I wash it every day with the best shampoo, after all. My eyes are pale blue and innocent. My skin is white and my cheeks are pink. I look like a doll. I look like someone who has never heard a gunshot, never seen a corpse, never felt the hot spray of blood across their fingertips. But I have. My reflection is no reflection at all, just a masterful artist's rendering of childhood. I hang that painting in front of my blackened soul, hoping that maybe some of its redemption will rub off on me.

That doll in the mirror has never killed. 

When my face is relaxed, it has a natural look of almost surprise. I've seen that expression on so many faces. Because it's the face everyone wears when they realize they're dead. They're all surprised to feel the crushing weight of mortality land on them. It's shocking. They never expect that fatal blow. They never expect to die. That surprised look is always the last look their faces ever wear. If their faces are intact later, they wear that expression to their own funeral, to their own grave.

And I wear it all the time. I don't know why. Maybe I'm expecting death. Maybe I'm hoping for death. Hell can't be anything worse than what I'm already subjecting myself to, right? But it never comes. Maybe Death sees that face and thinks I'm already dead. I always get out. It doesn't matter who else dies, how close the explosion is to me, Death always misses me.

No matter who else it takes. 

No matter how close it gets. 

No matter how sure I am that I will be next, it always sees that relief, and skips me. And takes someone else. Trowa. Death took Trowa. Death _killed_ Trowa. It skipped me and took him. 

No. 

__

No. I killed Trowa. Me. I pulled the trigger and it was my gun that spat fire towards his suit. It is me who carries full responsibility for the explosion that blinded me and sent his tiny, armourless body hurtling through space to a slow, cold death.

Allah, I barely even knew him. I called him a friend, my one friend, but who was he? Just an expressionless face, another of the pilots, just a wordless mystery that somehow managed to handle both a Gundam and flute with equal artistry. I never understood him, what or who he was. I had no right to call him my friend, and _less _than no right now.

It almost makes me laugh, the difference in our first and last words to each other. The first time I met him, it was me telling him we should not be fighting, telling him I was surrendering and that he could put his hands down. The last time I ever heard his voice, he was saying almost the reciprocal to me. 

I know I'll never forget his voice, as long as this pitiful excuse of a lifetime keeps up with me. He looked older than fifteen, Trowa. His eyes, when I could see both of them, seemed to hold the wisdom and experience of an old man. But his voice, the last time I ever heard it, was that of a child. Sure, it was his voice, a voice I was used to, though he used it infrequently, a voice that suited him, that had never seemed odd to me. But there was some inflection behind it then, some intonation, some accent, some tone, that it made him sound younger and more innocent than a newborn.

__

Turn back into that nice guy I once knew… But he didn't. He never knew me. I was a killer when I met him. I was never a nice guy. Before I was a killer, I was a brat. No. He was wrong. I can never go back. Not after killing the one person I had the gall to call a friend.

But maybe it's better that he's gone, you know? He made me think things I would burn for, more so than for any murder I've committed. When I first saw his face over the com, that first day, that first battle… No expression of surprise could have beaten the look that I'm sure was on my face that day. His skill as a pilot, his grace as he walked out of the cockpit, the calm demeanour in which he surrendered to me, even after a moment before trying to destroy me. Maybe I have weird tastes, but nothing could have prepared me for that sight. I was certain I was dreaming, or that I was really finally dead, and here was Hell's most tragically beautiful fallen angel to lead me to my doom.

I would have followed him anywhere.

But even as I think this, I can't help but think, maybe he _is _a demon. He's a _boy_. As I am a boy. We are both boys. How can I feel this strongly for him? I called him "friend," but that is nowhere near accurate. I knew from the first image of him, scrambled and pixely, that I had fallen in love with him. And that is wrong. Every time my thoughts turn to him, I hear my father's words. Words of disgust and near hatred. Once, when I was young and we were walking through a park near our home, we saw two men holding hands on a nearby bench. Nothing more, just holding hands. And Father told me not to look. He said they were betraying Allah with every breath they took, and that they would burn in the Devil's fire for their treason. I didn't understand. I was holding Father's hand tightly to keep from getting lost. Would I burn as well?

But now I know what he meant. I know where in the Qur'an, dictated by Mohammed, peace be upon him, where it says that it is a grave sin for a man to love another man. Lust as a sin is bad enough. But a man to a man… 

And yet we are told to love even our enemies. Twice in my life has Trowa been my enemy. Once I surrendered before either of us could do anything foolish. And the other, I shot him before he could stop me.

And both times I loved him. So much it burned. The first time it shocked me into docility, and the second it boiled my blood and made me pull the trigger. I'll never understand it.

Both times, he surrendered to me. Both times he accepted it, accepted what he was sure had to happen, what had happened before. I think all his life he's been accepting things. He has that quality to him--not shrinking or docile, just… ready. Not fighting. I could see it in him the first time I saw him, and I heard it in his voice a moment before his suit exploded.

He told me only one thing about his past. Only that he'd been among soldiers since he was a tiny child. And even I am not naïve enough to misunderstand the evil that was inevitably done to him there. A beautiful boy child in a camp full of hardened killers? They wouldn't think twice about ruining him. Evil. That's all I can call it. Man and boy. Boy and man. Boy and boy. It is evil. If there is no other way to solidify that in my head, I give you that. That horrible history of pain and shame that he called a childhood. I will not do the same. I will not damn him further. I will not defile him further. I will allow him that grace. I will not dishonour his memory by thinking such terrible thoughts. 

I called him my friend. I lied, which is a sin in itself, but I desperately wanted to believe it. We were both if us bound for Hell regardless, doubtless for the delightful section for murderers. But I would not, I _will _not allow myself to shame him anymore. I will allow him to take that dignity with him to Judgement. He can stand tall and face his fate and not have to know that he willingly gave himself to another man in love or lust. Because he would have, I think. He would have accepted it. He would have let me do whatever I wanted to him. He surrendered the first time and the last time, and would have done it then, too. He would have let me clasp his hand as did the hands of our Gundams in that first, short-lived battle. He would have let me drag my hand up his arm to his face, cup his cheek and touch my mouth to his. He would have let me--

No. I must not think of such things. Not about Trowa. I have hurt him enough. I have damned him enough. I must let him go. I killed him. Maybe I saved him from damnation, from myself, and maybe I didn't. But I killed him, and I cannot dirty my memories of him with such evil. And I cannot cling to him. I killed him. I must let him go. I killed him. I must let Allah have him now. 

He was never mine.

But he's dead. Because of me. He accepted it.

I can cry all I want. He was never mine. He will never be mine. I cannot wrap his soul in such damning thought. I can tell myself that over and over.

But I can never accept it. 

Please, please, for the love of God, leave me a review! This story has, what, five? One of them is my cousin, and one is a junior high friend who doesn't even know what Gundam Wing is about! Nik, Pom, I love you, but I need MORE!!!!!


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